


right at your side

by EssayOfThoughts



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Comfort, Comfort No Hurt, F/M, Fluff, Mention of a Canonical Character Death, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, Post-Episode: The Search for Bob, Pregnancy, a little Angst though, conflicted feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-05 04:36:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20482976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: She keeps it to herself for a week.





	right at your side

**Author's Note:**

> Much appreciation to my dear friend [Strandshaper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strandshaper/pseuds/Strandshaper) for patiently pointing out where I messed up on the commas and also for getting into a debate over what kinds of spells might actually work as contraceptives or pregnancy tests. Though I've gone with regular fanon here of there being various small cantrips anyone can learn for that, they did point out the delightful idea that Locate Creature might work for the latter.

She keeps it to herself for a week. It’s not that she’s scared (well, perhaps a little, who wouldn’t be?), or that she doesn’t want it or is worried at how Percy might react to the news (one conversation with Percy over their year off had assured her that he wanted children too, someday, so she doesn’t even have to worry about that). It’s just... 

It’s too soon. Vax has been dead barely a week. Vecna has been banished barely a week. Vasselheim has been saved for barely a week.

And unless she makes a decision she’s not yet entirely sure of it’s going to be another nine months of things happening. And then, after that, years and years, caring for _ her child. _

In truth, she’d rather like a little more time to _ grieve. _ A little more time to adjust to the idea, a little more time to accept that, when she and Percy have children, they will have no Uncle Vax to be a watchful presence and protector, as her brother had been for her.

For a week, she keeps her suspicions to herself. Intermittent nausea is no guarantee; they’d plane-shifted to Pandemonium and back and Percy had lost his memories when they’d done that to the Feywild. They’d all been battered going to the Shadowfell. Why couldn’t it just be a bad response to plane shift?

But her bleeding is late and the nausea persists and maths has always been her strong suit, after sheer perceptiveness, and she knows the maths adds up. 

There’s small charms and cantrips even the most basic practitioner can learn, to ward off pregnancy and disease and to detect them. She’s almost glad of that, that she won’t need to ask Keyleth or Pike to check.

If she’s honest, she doesn't know how Keyleth will react.

She waits a week. She casts her spell. She curls in bed with Percy and rests her head on his chest. His fingers are gentle as they comb through her hair.

She doesn't say anything, just yet.

* * *

It’s something she appreciates, how gentle he’s been during this all. Even in Pandemonium, even now they’ve returned, there’s just a gentle patience and a gentle kindness. She knows he’s content to go where she goes, to do as she suggests, that for all he’s fully capable of deciding what to do himself he trusts her implicitly to decide for them both if needs be. It’s reassuring, in its way. She knows, when she chooses to broach this, that Percy won’t respond badly.

She’s still hesitant to say anything. She feels… tired and drained, and while she has the energy to check on the Parchwood and do her patrols, while she has the energy to help Percy and Cass and the rest of the Whitestone council, she doesn’t feel like she’s entirely _ there. _ She wonders, briefly, if this is how Percy feels on his bad days.

Percy, kindly, doesn’t mention it. When they go to bed and she presses close to his side he wraps an arm around her and presses kisses to her hair, tangles the fingers of their free hands together and doesn’t say a word. For a man so blatantly terrible at offering comfort to anyone it still surprises Vex, some days, how able he is when it comes to her. 

She curls to sleep with Percy. She rests her head on his scarred chest, tangles her fingers with his, relaxes into the gentle hold of his arm, into the _ comfort _ of it. She is far better at giving comfort and affection than receiving it, as Percy well knows, but right now she needs this and Percy takes the reversal with ready grace. In his arms, she sleeps better than she might; in his arms when she wakes shaken by bad dreams she wakes, also, to his sleep-fuzzed voice calling her name, his hands on her skin, his presence and the reassurance that brings her. 

He doesn’t ask what’s worrying her, though she thinks that, given how carefully he watches her, he has guessed that _ something _ is by now. 

She still doesn’t tell Percy. If she’s honest, she’s not entirely sure _ how. _

* * *

“Darling?” she asks one morning. “What do you think of having children?”

His voice is sleep-fuzzed but clear; she’s looking at the myriad scars that dot his skin but she can still hear the smile of his voice. “I think we’ve had this discussion before, dear.”

Softly, she presses her lips to his skin. “Humour me?”

“One day,” he says - still sleep-fuzzed, still not entirely awake. Percy, she knows, has never been a morning person. “I would like to have children one day. It doesn’t have to be immediately; it doesn’t have to be at all if you don’t want. But I would like to have children with you someday.”

It eases some tight knot of tension in Vex’s chest that she hadn’t been fully aware of, lets her breathe out a long breath and tap fingers over his skin, over the scars of his chest. Two lines framed by suture marks that she knows are Ripley’s doing, one bullet mark, also Ripley’s, and the uppermost tip of a clawmark that was Raishan’s last piece of work. She smooths fingers down the lattermost, following the stretch of it down his body, feels his skin twitch and half-shiver at the touch until his fingers catch hers.

“Something’s worrying you.” Percy’s voice is soft and no longer sleep-fuzzed, but it’s an observation not a question and less weighty a sentence for it. His fingers, worn and callused, graze gently over the skin of her shoulder, rub gently over the very tips of the fingers he holds in his. When she glances up to his face, his eyes, as clear as the lenses of his glasses, are fixed on her. She feels his fingers move again, a simple soothing circle on her skin, a simple soft squeeze of her fingers, the same gentle reassurance he’s been offering for days. “Dear?”

She could say nothing. She knows that if she does, Percy won’t push, not unless he thinks he has real cause for worry. (Perhaps, she considers, he does.) But Percy watches her with clear eyes despite the early hour. Percy waits for her response instead of pushing.

Percy is _ Percy, _the other half of this child’s _ existence. _

So she says, “What about now?”

It doesn’t take long for him to put it together. Percy is many things but he is not stupid; she sees as it all slots together for him, neat and tidy as any of the little mechanisms he makes. She sees his eyes widen, his mouth fall the littlest part open, _ feels _ as he moves to sit upright, untangling his arms from around her to gently cup her cheek.

There is amazement on his face, and something close to awe, surprise and happiness, and a thing that is purely joyous and oh _ this, _ this is why she didn’t just say because knowing Percy’s feelings on this matter she is not so cruel as to bring it up and tear it away. Not after how much family they’ve each already lost.

“I realised,” she says, “when we got back from Pandemonium.”

Percy’s eyes are bright darting things, his thumb is gentle as it smooths over the skin of her cheek. She knows his expression, now: behind the awe and surprise and joy he is assessing, thinking, putting together that she hasn’t said anything until now, that something is worrying her. Same as in the Feywild he takes the time to _ think, _ to understand why this matters to her, and she loves him for it.

“You’re worried,” he says. Again, it’s an observation not a question, but there’s a weight to it now as there wasn’t before. “Something is bothering you.” 

His thumb rubs over her cheek again and she can feel the calluses of it, already worn in even on his new hand. 

“Dear?”

The light - the joy - isn’t gone from his face, but it’s tucked away, put in a neat little box to be attended to later, because he’s looking at her with all the attentiveness he ever has, the focus he applies to his projects, to combat, to _ her _ and that never fails to make her feel like the centre of his world. She’s not sure that’s a good thing, right now.

She lifts her hand to his, to stroke her thumb over the skin of his hand because this isn’t easy to admit to let alone easy to hear. 

“It feels too _ soon,” _ she says, and there’s something damp to her voice, something she thought she’d managed to hold back. It’s something about Percy, she suspects, that means she knows she can be vulnerable with him. His brow crinkles and she gestures with her free hand. “It’s just. _ Everything. _ It’s all… Vax. Vecna. Vasselheim. Grog and fucking _ Pandemonium. _ We- we haven’t had a moment just to relax and now-”

One hand on her cheek becomes two. Familiar thumbs run gently under her eyes, sweeping dampness softly away. 

“Vex,” he says, and it’s soft and it’s sure, as absolute as his words ever are once he’s chewed them over into the right shapes. _ “Vex. _ Whatever you decide, I will be right at your side.”

And oh, but _ that _ is what she has needed to hear this whole time, from the moment she thought it possible to now. _ That _is what she has needed to hear and she leans against him, his hands sliding from her face to her neck to her shoulders, pulling her to his chest with one hand tangled in the length of her hair. 

_ “Whatever _ you decide,” he says, and there is a kiss pressed to her temple, to her eyelid, to her cheek, to her mouth. A dusting of love over her face and Percy’s arms firm around her, reassuring and solid as a rock. _ This _ is what she needed before she could make any utter decision. Not just knowing that Percy wouldn’t run from either decision, from the terrible truth that she doesn’t know if this is the best time to the fact that she wants this child so much it almost hurts, but _ hearing _ it, his words unflinching, his love unstinting. Percy is warm against her, his scars familiar under her hands, his pulse as steady and reassuring as his words. 

Her words when she next speaks are damp but not with worry. It’s some bright relief that tints her tone as she looks up at Percy’s utterly earnest face and admits, “Darling, I don’t have the first clue what _ name _ to give them.”

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments!


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